


No 2. IN THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY (Kidnapped)

by Goose_Goddess



Series: Goose's Whumptober 2020 [2]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Gen, Kidnapping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:15:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26784271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goose_Goddess/pseuds/Goose_Goddess
Summary: Q is kidnapped. His team is not happy about it.
Series: Goose's Whumptober 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1949830
Kudos: 24





	No 2. IN THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY (Kidnapped)

The one thing Q hates the most about his position is that he’s a high-risk target. As such, he’s supposed to either have a bodyguard or take a company car when he goes home. So, of course, the time he does get kidnapped, he was _in the office_. Granted, it was 2 a.m., but still. He should have been safe. He was surrounded by bloody _spies_. Most of the staff was _armed_. Yet several men barged into the room, grabbed him, and got him out without anyone stopping them.

He’s now tied to a chair in an empty room, just waiting for what he knows is going to come next. Though, looking around, he doesn’t seem to be any computers around at all. Why grab the quartermaster if you don’t need him to get you access to something? On the other hand, maybe it’s just a ransom grab? But that doesn’t make sense. He’s harder to grab than a lot of the other high ranked staff, so they clearly wanted him. It’s got to be either his skills or his access. Either way, his future is bound to hold quite a bit of pain.

They’d stopped several miles from the office, scanned him, and removed his tracker (very unprofessionally—Q wasn’t even sure if the knife they used was clean.) He supposed infection was also something he’d need to worry about in the future. But, in the meantime, he’s going to have to deal with keeping calm and quiet while the team figures out where he is. At least, they do have one advantage, provided R is okay. Q didn’t see what happened to her in the attack. He heard a lot of yelling and what sounded like gunshots. He hopes they were just threats, and that no one had been killed. 

If R was okay, and if she was in good enough shape, he had a chance to be out of here soon. If not, the team would be doing old-fashioned searching—hacking into cameras, looking for cars based on license plates, and so on. 

He decided he really needed to stop worrying about what was coming; thinking about upcoming pain would only make everything worse. He wondered what his agents did in this situation. Plan an escape? Case the joint for possible weapons? He glanced around. The team had strapped him down, then left. He was in here alone right now. And there really wasn’t much to look at. Concrete floor. Metal walls, ceiling supported by metal girders. The ceiling was very high. Must be an old warehouse. But it looked stripped. The windows, few and up high, looks filthy. But other than that, nothing. 

He sighed, head dropping back. He’s definitely going to ask the agents for recommendations on how to pass the time when locked in a chair. 

Time passes very slowly. He tried listening carefully. Nothing to hear. He recited PI back as many digits as he could remember. He tried recreating his last program in his head. And now the light was going. So he’s spent the entire day just sitting here. Well, at least his bad habit of forgetting to eat has one good result. He wasn’t hungry. And since he didn’t have his constant supply of tea, he’s not suffering too badly from the lack of access to a bathroom. However, he is going to get hungry or need to hit the loo before too much longer. 

His arms started to hurt awhile back, but now they’re just numb. Q sighed. This must be some sort of psychological torture. Keep the person in solitary confinement for hours until they’ll talk to anyone. If that’s the case, then he’s probably going to be here a lot longer. On the other hand, if they don’t let him eat at some point, he’ll be too out of it to be any use to them.

He sighed. Bond would have gotten loose by now. Trevelyan would have yelled until someone came to see what was up. Even Eve would probably have social engineered the situation to her advantage. Q, however, just sat here. Okay. So. What would 007 do. 

He looked down at his legs. No duct tape, no rope, they’d shackled him with cuffs that were connected with a metal chain. His wrists felt like the same thing. A leather belt around his waist was fastened to something, he wasn’t sure what.

He had taught himself how to pick locks, but that required getting his hands close enough to the lock to actually pick it. With his hands stuck behind him, that would be impossible. Maybe when they let him eat? Okay. So currently getting loose was beyond his skills, and possibly beyond Bonds. 

He frowned. So what next? Try the other approach his agents seem to prefer? Be loud and obnoxious? Poke at the enemy until they make a mistake, then take advantage of it?

He sighed. He could be obnoxious, but the kind of obnoxious he was wasn’t the kind that got villains furious and ranting, his kind of obnoxious drove his brother’s to gag him if he didn’t stop talking about obscure science facts. 

So. More waiting? He didn’t know what else he could do. Hopefully, someone would…

The door where the crew had exited opened, finally, and someone walked in. 

“Quartermaster.” The man called. “Sorry to have left you waiting for so long. We were waiting on a piece of equipment.” He strode across the floor towards Q. “Unfortunately, without the right equipment we can’t make the most use of your skills.”

Behind him, the door swung open further and two more men walked in, one pushing a desk with computer equipment on it, the other holding what looked like a large power supply.

One thing one of the agents had told him, he couldn’t remember which, was when they started really interrogating you, to just start talking. Tell them anything and everything you could think of. The crazier the better. That way, when you did break, and the agent told him everyone does eventually break, they won’t be sure and won’t know what is real information and what isn’t. 

But, from the look of it, they didn’t want Q to talk. They wanted Q for his skills. He just hoped they wanted him to hack MI6. That he could do in good conscience. But if they wanted him in something else… So. Wait and see. No point in panicking until he knew what they wanted.

The men arranged the computer before him, and one of them released his hands. He groaned as he straightened his arms and started slowly flexing his fingers. They actually hurt more now that they weren’t trapped behind the chair. As he did, he slowly leaned forward. The belt around his waist was fastened tight enough that he could probably reach a keyboard, but nothing else. He already knew his legs weren’t getting loose. His best bet was still kill time as long as possible, hoping R could use the smart blood to track him down.

He held his hands out in front of him, making them shake.He looked at his hands, then at the men, tucking his hands into his armpits, trying to look nervous and worried.

“So. We need your skills. You are legendary at hacking.” The first man said. “So we’re going to start with a demo. I’m going to give you a task, and you’re going to finish it in the given time.”

Q looked at him, trying very hard to look terrified. He pictured the way his minions looked when one of the double 0s started in on them. He must have succeeded, because the man paused at looked at him oddly. 

“Why are your hands in your armpits?” He growled.

“I’m fine.” Q said quietly.

The man grabbed his arms and yanked. “Show me.”

Q held out his hands, showing how they were badly shaking. 

“What is wrong with you?” The man asked. He glared at the others. “No one reported any health issues?” 

The other men shook their heads.

Q ducked his head and mumbled something.

The man grabbed his chin and yanked it up. “What was that?” He demanded.

“I… It’s low blood sugar.” Q whispered. “I haven’t eaten and…” He shrugged and looked down again.

The man growled again, then sent one of the men off to fetch food.

Q delayed by first eating the sandwiches they brought him, then demanding a drink, then needing to use the restroom. But at that point, he knew he was really out of excuses. If he didn’t at least do some hacking, they were going to punish him. So, after they dragged him back (they did _not_ unshackle his legs, though they released his belt temporarily, so he shuffle to the restroom), he sighed and asked what they wanted him to do for the demonstration.

“You have an hour to hack into the CIA mainframe and find the records on project Artemis.” The man said. He’d brought an extra chair in for himself, and had made himself comfortable in it, arms folded as he stared impatiently at Q.

Q sighed to himself. Maybe this time when he talked to Felix, he’d consider his suggestion to create a second ghost copy of their server that captured agents or others could hack when forced. Oh well, he had asked once before and laughed at. Apparently, the CIA was too confident that someone who looked like Q wasn’t going to be able to hack into their system. Their loss.

His personal record was 20 minutes, so an hour was plenty of time. Fortunately, they had actually asked someone who at least had a passing knowledge of what he needed. Whatever wasn’t on here, he could download from his sites quickly. And maybe he could also use the opportunity to help the search for himself. He decided the best approach was to use as many windows as languages as possible, hopefully confusing and boring the people in the room. 

At first, almost every time he opened a window or typed a line, he was interrupted with a “What are you doing?” demand. He answered, but made it very clear by his body language that they were slowing him down and keeping him from getting the information they wanted. Eventually the men just stared at him as he hacked the CIA and logged into a secure server connected to MI6, which let them know he was alive and well.

To his relief, before he announced his success and showed the team the files they wanted, R sent him a coded message letting him know he’d been located and someone was on the way. He immediately replied with the information he was retrieving and asking her to contact the CIA ASAP to let them know of the leak.

R immediately responded with _stall_. Q glanced at the clock. He was only at 30 minutes; he could stall without risking his health. So he kept typing and mucking about for another few minutes until R sent _safe to hack._ Q grinned. Okay. She must have reached the CIA; hopefully the contents were now enough to be convincing, but not enough to cause damage.

He pulled up the records, quit out of all his content, then turned the computer monitor towards his captor. “There. Files you wanted.”

“Not bad.” The man replied. “Still have almost 20 minutes left. They weren’t kidding about your skill level.” He looked over the contents, scrolling through files and reading quickly. “And that looks like the real stuff.” He looked at Q. “Well, as a reward, I think we’ll leave you with your hands free. A lot more comfortable. When we’re done reviewing this, we’ll give you your real task.”

Q nodded and leaned back in his chair. The men rolled away everything, even removing the extra chair. And Q was back to being along. He sighed. He hoped when R said they were on their way she meant they were literally on their way. He didn’t...

A loud bang, followed by several gun shots startled him. Well. That answered that. Someone was clearly here. Nothing to do now, though, except wait. He was definitely asking the agents for more lessons once he was back. Wasn’t much he could have done when they grabbed him, but...

Then the lights went out, and he was sitting there in the dark with no idea what was going on. All he could hear was fighting from the distant rooms, but had no idea who was there, who was winning, or what was going on. To keep himself from panicking, he started planning a new earwig that would be undetectable. He was not going to find himself in this position again—completely blind and unable to help his agents in any way.

Then the sounds stopped. 

Heart pounding, he waited, wondering who was going to come through the door. For a while, no one did. Then, the lights came back on, the door opened, and an entire crowd rushed through the door and straight to him. Bond, Trevelyan, Eve, Tanner, and four other people he didn’t immediately identify arrived. 

Q slumped in relief. He couldn’t wait to get out of here. He had so many changes he needed to make, and so many new items he needed to put together and get into testing. He was not going to be anywhere blind and deaf like this again.


End file.
